


lord of the storm

by tigriswolf



Series: comment_fic drabbles [264]
Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Future Fic, Gen, Immortality, M/M, Methos is Not Nice, Methos is OLD, Past Violence, Teaching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-03
Updated: 2015-09-03
Packaged: 2018-04-18 19:02:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4717016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigriswolf/pseuds/tigriswolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first thing Methos teaches each of his students, from the first to the last, is how to die. </p><p>After that, he shows them how to live.</p>
            </blockquote>





	lord of the storm

**Author's Note:**

> Title: lord of the storm  
> Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Gilgamesh  
> Warnings: references to death/violence  
> Pairings: implied Methos/Kronos  
> Rating: PG  
> Wordcount: 375  
> Point of view: third  
> Prompt: any, any, "Only one rule: we all die in the end."

The first thing Methos teaches each of his students, from the first to the last, is how to die. 

After that, he shows them how to live. 

.

He spaces them out across centuries, keeps them until he's sure they can survive, and then checks in from time to time. He loves them neither more nor less than the mortal children he raises, and none of them ever know the name he's been assigned by the Watchers, the name that means _oldest of us all_. 

Well, none of them but one. Kronos is the exception to so many of his rules. 

Despite how it ends, he only regrets a single thing about his years with Kronos: how Kronos never learned to adapt. 

.

 _In the end_ , so many of the dead cry, _there can be only one_. 

It's such a stupid thing. Not even he knows where it came from. 

. 

They all fall, as time marches on. Every child he has ever loved and left. They all fall. 

He promises, listening to Byron's last piece, that he'll never take on another student. 

Of course, he's promised that before. 

.

When he's not annoyed at Methos, MacLeod does ask about the wisdom learned over so many centuries. There is so much Methos could teach, if he chose to. 

Methos smiles at him, the ghosts of Kronos and Byron, even of Caspian, standing around them both, here in Joe's bar. 

"You're not my student," he says, swirling his beer in the bottle. "You don't learn, anyway." 

MacLeod pouts at him. 

.

The first thing Methos ever teaches his students is how to die. 

Joe asks him, just once, if he's got any _nemeses_ the way MacLeod seems to. MacLeod's killed more of their kind than most headhunters manage, ever so _honorable_ and _noble_. He's a child, not even half a millennium yet. He's killed more of their kind than Methos has. 

"I don't do nemeses, Joe," Methos says, wondering how Joe will explain the Chronicle that Methos isn't supposed to know he's writing. 

Methos does not leave threats at his back. And if Joe doesn't figure out the warning, well. He's getting old, for a mortal. And for all that Methos likes him - 

Well, he'd loved Kronos for three thousand years.


End file.
